something else then it is supposed to indicate it but, since items don ' t always perform their functions, room for error has been made. dretske appears to rely on an etiological analysis of functions ( see e. g., dretske 1995, p. 7 ). he speaks of states acquiring a function to indicate by being selected or recruited for indicating. roughly, dretske suggests that rs represent cs iff rs were recruited for indicating cs and for causing a bodily movement, m. dretske ( 1995, p. 2 ) says, “ [ t ] he fundamental idea is that a system, s, represents a property, f, if and only if s has the function of indicating ( providing information about ) the f of a certain domain of objects. the way s performs its function ( when it performs it ) is by occupying different states s1, s2, … sn corresponding to the different determinate values f1, f2 … fn, of f. ” for example, part of the visual system might represent the orientation of lines in a region of the visual field. if so, it does so because it has the function of carrying information about the orientation of lines in that region and it performs this function ( when it performs it ) by entering into different states when different orientations of lines are present in that region. this account of representation seems to make room for error, because it implies that representations need only indicate their contents during recruitment or in the environment and given the channel conditions in which recruitment took place ; error being possible after that time or in other environments or circumstances. however, dretske ( 1986 ) sees a problem with this suggestion. he illustrates the problem with the case of ocean - dwelling anaerobic bacteria that have tiny magnets ( magnetesomes ) that are attracted to magnetic north, which serve to direct the bacteria downwards into the relatively oxygen - free sediment on the ocean floor. plausibly, the function of the magnetesomes is to direct the bacteria to anaerobic conditions. if we “ fool ” the bacteria by holding a bar magnet nearby and lead the bacteria upward to their death, this looks like a case of natural misrepresentation. we were, in dretske ' s words, looking for “ nature ' s way of making a mistake ” and we seem to have found it. the problem, says dretske, is that it is indeterminate how we should describe the function of the magnetesomes. we can


looking for “ nature ' s way of making a mistake ” and we seem to have found it. the problem, says dretske, is that it is indeterminate how we should describe the function of the magnetesomes. we can plausibly say that they have the function of indicating the oxygen - free sediment. but we can also plausibly say that they have the function of indicating geo - magnetic or even local magnetic north. if we say the latter, no misrepresentation has occurred. so dretske ' s interim conclusion is that we cannot count this as an unambiguous case of error, on his theory as outlined so far. a number of distinct problems go under the name of “ the functional indeterminacy problem ” ( section 4. 1 ) and the magnetesome example can be used to illustrate several of them. however, dretske ' s response to the indeterminacy problem that he raised suggests that his main concern was with what is known as the problem of distal content. his problem, then, is this. suppose that we have a simple system that has just one way of detecting the presence of some feature of the environment. we have just seen a case of this for the anaerobic bacteria have just one way of detecting anaerobic conditions ( via the local magnetic field ). in such a case, if an inner state indicates the distal feature ( anaerobic conditions ) it will also indicate the more proximal feature ( local magnetic north ). moreover, if there was selection for indicating the distal feature, there will also have been selection for indicating the more proximal feature ( since it is by indicating the latter that it indicates the former ). dretske further points out that, even if a creature has several routes by which it can detect a given distal feature ( e. g., even if the bacteria can detect anaerobic conditions by means of light sensors as well ) there would still be a disjunction of more proximal features that the representation could count as representing, since it could still count as having the function of indicating the disjunction of more proximal features ( i. e., local magnetic north or reduced light ). while we might be perfectly willing to allow that the magnetesomes in anaerobic bacteria do not represent or misrepresent, the problem of distal content generalizes. when you see a chair across the room as a chair across the room, you represent it


perfectly willing to allow that the magnetesomes in anaerobic bacteria do not represent or misrepresent, the problem of distal content generalizes. when you see a chair across the room as a chair across the room, you represent it as a solid 3d object at a distance from you and not as a stream of light reflected from it or as a pattern of firings in your retinas. otherwise you would not try to walk to the chair and sit on it. an informational theory of content must therefore explain how mental representations represent distal features of the world, as opposed to the more proximal items that carry information about those distal features to the representations that represent them. dretske ( 1986 ) therefore modifies his proposal and maintains that a creature that is capable of representing determinate content must be capable of learning any number of new epistemic routes to the same distal feature. in that case, he says, there is no closed disjunction of more proximal stimuli that the representation could count as representing. he speaks of conditioning in this context. the relevant representation is recruited by conditioning to indicate the distal feature rather than the disjunction of more proximal features, because there is no finite time - invariant disjunction of more proximal stimuli that it has the function of indicating. loewer ( 1987 ) points out that conditioning ends at death, at which point no further epistemic routes can be acquired. so, at the death of a creature, there will be a closed disjunction of proximal features that each of the creature ' s representations was recruited to indicate. ( loewer comments that dretske might appeal to epistemic routes that could possibly be acquired by a creature but is unsure if this succeeds. ) the claim that misrepresentation is impossible without learning anyway seems problematic, since it seems to preclude representations produced by innate input systems, such as innate sensory - perceptual systems. some psychologists also claim that some core concepts are innate ( e. g., see carey 2009 ). later, dretske ( 1988 ) drops his conditioning requirement insofar as it is a requirement on content possession but he keeps it as a requirement for the kind of content that can explain behavior. ( for discussion of dretske ' s account of the causal efficacy of content, see the essays in mclaughlin ( 1991 ). ) this re - raises the question of how representations produced by innate input analyzers have distal


content that can explain behavior. ( for discussion of dretske ' s account of the causal efficacy of content, see the essays in mclaughlin ( 1991 ). ) this re - raises the question of how representations produced by innate input analyzers have distal content. dretske ' s strict characterization of indication is thought by some to be troublesome. one reason is that there can be no non - intentional process of selection for something to do z unless that thing, or things of that type at least, did do z. hearts cannot be selected for pumping blood by natural selection unless some hearts pump blood. similarly, no mechanism can be selected for producing rs because they indicate cs unless some rs indicate cs. however, all rs must indicate cs in a region of space - time if any are to do so, given the strict characterization of indication ( for if rs indicate cs in that region, then in that region it must be the case that c being the case, given an r - tokening, has a probability of one ). hence, where and while recruitment continues, rs cannot occur without cs. fodor ( 1990b ) questions whether this requirement would be met or met often enough, given that misrepresentation can occur later. perhaps dretske ' s appeal to channel conditions can help him out of this apparent difficulty. however, specifying channel conditions without being ad hoc or circular or adverting to intentional phenomena ( such as that a perceiver is not distracted ) could prove difficult. there are some hints in dretske ' s writings of a willingness to use a less strict notion of indication for he sometimes speaks of the content of a representation as the “ maximally indicated state. ” this suggests that there are more minimally indicated states, which would be an oxymoron on the strict interpretation. however, this looser interpretation is not developed in dretske ' s writings and his ( 1981 ) offers several arguments against loosening the requirement. a further argument against indicator - semantics involves the claim that something qualifies as a representation only if it is used as a representation. millikan ( 1989, pp. 84 – 90 ) argues that a representation ' s content must therefore be determined by its use or else something could count as a representation without representing anything, which would be nonsense. the thought seems to be this : if representational status and representational content are determined separately, they could come apart and, if they could came apart, something could count as a representation by satisfying the requirement for representational


representation. an issue worth considering is whether a multiplicity of consumers ( e. g., the frog ' s motor control system employed in orienting toward the stimulus, the digestive system that digests the food, the circulatory system that circulates the digested nutrients and so on ) for a given representation will lead to inappropriate content ambiguity. this will depend on whether different consumers have different normal conditions for the use of the same representation. if the normal conditions for the functions of various systems that consume a representation in an individual routinely coincide one might wonder if the normal conditions for the functions of producing systems will also coincide and, if so, why we need to focus on consumers in particular. this might be one reason why, in later writings, millikan does not emphasize the consumer ' s functions over the producer ' s to the same extent. some argue that millikan ' s theory has advantages in comparison with dretske ' s indicator semantics ( see e. g., godfrey - smith 1989 and millikan 2004 ). on millikan ' s theory, a representation, r, can represent some environmental feature, c, even if it was never entirely reliable that if there was an r then there was a c. it is enough, on her theory, that rs mapped on to cs often enough for the representation ' s consumers to have ( so to speak ) benefited from that mapping. there is no need to provide independently specifiable channel conditions or to distinguish between recruitment and post - recruitment environments. it can also be argued that millikan has solved the problem of distal content for innate as well as learned concepts. neither retinal images nor light reflected from prey feed a frog. so it can be argued that the normal condition for the performance of the proper function of the consumer of the frog ' s perceptual representation is frog food, not light reflected from the prey or retinal images. however, whether millikan ' s solution to the problem of distal content survives closer scrutiny is not clear. a solution must exclude inappropriately proximal items, as well as include appropriately distal items. food is included in the content of the frog ' s perceptual representation, on millikan ' s theory, but the issue is whether the proximal items that carry information about the food to the frog are excluded. frog food is of no use to a frog if the frog cannot detect it and a frog can only normally detect its prey if light is reflected from it and


content ascriptions are suitable for some theoretical purposes and others for others. one might agree that folk psychological ascriptions of intentional mental states are meant to rationalize behavior but question whether this is their role in cognitive science. in the latter case, the aim is to explain the psychological capacities of humans and ( in the case of cognitive neuroethology ) other creatures. thus a question to ask is what content ascriptions would serve the explanatory purposes of the mind and brain sciences, rather than our folk psychological intuitions. neander ( 2006 ) and schulte ( forthcoming ) argue that benefit - based theories generate the wrong contents for mainstream ( information - processing ) theories of perception in relation to the simple system cases discussed in the philosophy literature. a principle of such mainstream theories is is that, in vision, the invisible properties of objects are only represented after the visible surface features of objects are first represented ( see, e. g., palmer 1999 ). the worry is that benefit - based theories can entail that it is only the invisible but beneficial property that are represented in perception. further afield, shapiro ( 1992 ) discusses the role of content ascriptions in foraging theory, which raises a different set of theoretical considerations. millikan occasionally makes it clear that her theory is intended as a version of an isomorphism theory. according to an isomorphism theory, representation is a matter of mirroring the relations among the elements in the represented domain in the relations among elements in the representing domain. since the relevant resemblances are relational, there is no requirement that representations share properties other than abstract relational properties with their representeds. this makes isomorphism theories more plausible than crude resemblance theories. however, this aspect of millikan ' s theory is not much developed. ( see shea 2012 for discussion of the role of isomorphism in her theory. ) to a large extent, millikan ' s theory has been responsible for the great interest, both positive and negative, that philosophers have shown in this general class of theories. her writings on the topic are extensive and this section has only touched on the basics of her view. a further way in which teleological theories of content can differ is with respect to the contents that they aim to explain. david papineau ' s theory, developed at the same time as millikan ' s, will help illustrate this point. papineau ( 1984, 1987, 1990 and 1993 ) develops a theory that is top - down, or non - combinatorial, ins


s theory, developed at the same time as millikan ' s, will help illustrate this point. papineau ( 1984, 1987, 1990 and 1993 ) develops a theory that is top - down, or non - combinatorial, insofar as the representational states to which his theory most directly applies are whole propositional attitudes ( e. g., beliefs and desires ). in early writings, millikan sometimes seems to hold a similar view and some objections initially raised against her theory are based on this interpretation of her view ( see, e. g., fodor 1990b, 64 – 69, where he raises some of the following points ). in papineau ' s theory, the contents of desires are primary and those of beliefs are secondary in terms of their derivation. according to papineau, a desire ' s “ real satisfaction condition ” is “ … that effect which it is the desire ' s biological purpose to produce ” ( 1993, 58 – 59 ), by which he means that “ [ s ] ome past selection mechanism has favored that desire — or, more precisely, the ability to form that type of desire — in virtue of that desire producing that effect ” ( 1993, 59 ). so desires have the function of causing us, in collaboration with our beliefs, to bring about certain conditions, conditions that enhanced the fitness of people in the past who had these desires. desires, in general, were selected for causing us to bring about conditions that contributed to our fitness, and particular desires were selected for causing us to bring about particular conditions. these conditions are referred to as their satisfaction conditions and they are the contents of desires. the “ real truth condition ” of a belief, papineau tells us, is the condition that must obtain if the desire with which it collaborates in producing an action is to be satisfied by the condition brought about by that action. a desire that has the function of bringing it about that we have food has the content that we have food, since it was selected for bringing it about that we have food, and if this desire collaborates with a belief to cause us to go to the fridge, the content of the belief is that there is food in the fridge if our desire for food would only be satisfied by our doing so if it is true that there is food in the fridge ( papineau ' s example ). this seems to reject the language of thought hypothesis, according to which thought employs a combinatorial semantics. language is combinatorial to


our doing so if it is true that there is food in the fridge ( papineau ' s example ). this seems to reject the language of thought hypothesis, according to which thought employs a combinatorial semantics. language is combinatorial to the extent that the meaning of a sentence is a function of the meanings of the words in the sentence and their syntactic relations. “ rover attacked fluff ” has a combinatorial meaning if its meaning is a function of the meaning of “ rover ”, the meaning of “ attacked ” and the meaning of “ fluff ”, along with their syntactic relations ( so that “ rover attacked fluff ” differs in meaning from “ fluff attacked rover ” ). according to some philosophers ( see esp. fodor 1975 ) the content of propositional attitudes is combinatorial in an analogous sense. that is, for instance, the content of a belief is a function of the contents of the component concepts employed in the proposition believed, along with their syntactic relations. a teleological theory of content can be combinatorial, for it can maintain that the content of a representation that expresses a proposition is determined by the separate histories of the representations for the conceptual constituents of the proposition ( and, perhaps, by the selection history of the syntactic rules that apply to their syntactic relations ). papineau ' s theory is not combinatorial, at least for some propositional attitudes. instead, the proposal is that the contents of concepts are a function of their role in the beliefs and desires in which they participate. papineau ' s theory is a benefit - based theory, and some issues discussed in the previous sub - section are relevant to an assessment of it. for instance, it is unclear that what we desire is always what is beneficial to fitness. one might want sex, not babies or bonding, and yet it might be the babies and the bonding that are crucial for fitness. however, this section will not attempt an overview of the strengths and weaknesses of this theory but will focus on issues peculiar to non - combinatorial accounts. any non - combinatorial theory must face certain general objections to non - combinatorial theories, such as the objection that it cannot account for the productivity and systematicity of thought ( fodor 1981, 1987 ). this entry will not rehearse that argument ( see the entry on the language of thought hypothesis ) but special problems for a teleological version of a non - combinatorial theory


systematicity of thought ( fodor 1981, 1987 ). this entry will not rehearse that argument ( see the entry on the language of thought hypothesis ) but special problems for a teleological version of a non - combinatorial theory need to be mentioned. consider, for example, the desire to dance around a magnolia tree when the stars are bright, while wearing two carrots for horns and two half cabbages for breasts. probably no - one has wanted to do this. but now suppose that someone does develop this desire ( to prove papineau wrong, say ) so that it is desired for the first time. we cannot characterize the situation in this way, according to a non - combinatorial teleological theory. since it has never been desired before, it has no history of selection and so no content on its first occurrence, on that style of theory. it is also a problem for this kind of theory that some desires do not or cannot contribute to their own satisfaction ( e. g., the desire for rain tomorrow or the desire to be immortal ) and that some desires that do contribute to their own satisfaction will not be selected for doing so ( e. g., the desire to smoke or to kill one ' s children ). in contrast, teleological theories that are combinatorial have no special problem with novel desires, desires that cannot contribute to bringing about their own satisfaction conditions or desires that have satisfaction conditions that do not enhance fitness, as long as their constitutive concepts have appropriate selection histories or are somehow built up from simpler concepts that have appropriate selection histories. papineau can respond by agreeing that some concessions to a combinatorial semantics have to be made. once some desires and beliefs have content, the concepts involved acquire content from their role in these and they can be used to produce further novel, or self - destructive or causally impotent desires. however, it needs to be shown that such a concession is not ad hoc. the problem is to justify the claim that the desire to blow up a plane with a shoe explosive is combinatorial, whereas the belief that there is food in the fridge is not. in contrast to papineau ' s theory, some teleological theories are combinatorial theories. according to these theories, a teleological theory directly accounts for the contents of just the representational simples and combinatorial processes are in addition involved in determining the content of more complex representations. there are two kinds of possible combinatorial processes


according to these theories, a teleological theory directly accounts for the contents of just the representational simples and combinatorial processes are in addition involved in determining the content of more complex representations. there are two kinds of possible combinatorial processes that might be involved. one operates at the level of a proposition, or at the level of entire map - like or pictorial representations. this type of combinatorial process is thought to play a role that is roughly analogous to the role of a grammar in a spoken language, or a role that is roughly analogous to the principles of map - formation in cartography or pictorial composition in picturing. for example, it might allow us to combine the concepts cat, on and mat to produce the thought ( belief, desire, etc. ) that the cat is on the mat. a second kind of combinatorial process that might be involved operates at the level of single concepts and their associated conceptions. some think that simpler concepts could be combined in conceptions to formulate more sophisticated concepts or to fix the reference of more sophisticated concepts that remain at roughly the grain of the lexemes of a language. most simply, the concepts male, adult and not married might be combined to form the concept bachelor by means of a definitional conception. or there might be other types of conceptions involved, such as wittgensteinian family resemblance conceptions or prototype - style conceptions. teleological theories can be more or less modest in their scope. a modest theory only aims to directly account for the contents of representational simples. dretske ( 1986 ), expresses a “ modest ” view when he gives voice to the hope that more sophisticated representations can be built out of the simple sensory - perceptual representations his theory accommodates. however, there is as yet no clear agreement among philosophers or psychologists as to which the representational simples are. one modest view is that a teleological theory should directly apply to sensory - perceptual and motor representations and to innate concepts only ( i. e., those that can be produced without learning ). however, even this needs qualifying, since it is controversial which of our concepts are innate. on a radical nativist view, such as that of fodor ( 1981 ), all or almost all of the concepts expressed by the lexical morphemes ( the smallest meaningful components ) of a language are innate ( not learned, only triggered ). if that were really so, a theory that aimed to account for the


unicorns as ( e. g. ) normal conditions is unproblematic since unicorn does not refer ( to anything actual ). arguably, non - modest theories deliver the correct referential content. it is a question whether a theory of referential content needs to determine the extension of a concept in all possible worlds. ( if the reader ' s view is that there are no unicorns in any possible worlds because unicorns are essentially fictional, the reader should here substitute another example of an actually empty but possibly non - empty concept, such as a concept of phlogiston or of entelechies. ) some theories of referential content do and some do not take on this task. the greatest challenge to those offering modest theories will be to explain how complex concepts can be composed out of or derived from simpler concepts. it might fairly be said that it is not the task of a fundamental theory of mental content per se to explain how complex concepts can be composed out of simpler ones, but it is a problem for modest theories if no such explanation is available. moreover, providing such an explanation is generally thought to be problematic. some say that “ modest ” theories have some seriously immodest consequences. one is alleged to be that there must be a principled analytic / synthetic distinction. see, for instance, fodor and lepore ( 1992 ), who argue that we must choose between three options : defending a principled analytic / synthetic distinction, accepting meaning holism or accepting that virtually no concepts of roughly the grain of the lexemes of a language are composed out of simpler concepts. they further argue that the first two options are not viable. however, some psychologists maintain that we must somehow “ bootstrap ” up from simple to sophisticated concepts ( see e. g., carey ( 2009 ) ). and some philosophers are anyway unconvinced by fodor and lepore ' s arguments. ( readers who would like to read more on concepts and conceptions might start with the introduction to and readings in margolis and laurence ( 1999 ) and the entries in this encyclopedia on concepts and on the analytic - synthetic distinction. ) to round out this survey of views, we return to informational theories, to look at some more recent work that is broadly in the tradition of stampe and dretske. these theories take seriously the idea that mental representations have informational functions. first, a response is offered to an argument that is intended to block all informational versions of teleosemantics. this argument is


producing rs in response to prox - cs because this was a means to its producing rs in response to cs and not vice - versa. the second requirement is intended to determine appropriately distal content and is to be applied only after the first requirement is applied. the first requirement on its own does not determine suitably distal content because there is a causal chain leading from c to r and, if the system had been selected for responding to cs by producing rs, it must also have been selected for responding to the proximal items in the causal chain ( such as the light reflected from cs toward the retina of the eye, in the case of visual perception ). these more proximal items in the causal chain carry information about c to the system and through the system to the r. there is, however, an asymmetry, to which the second requirement appeals. the system was selected for its disposition to respond to the proximal items because by that means it responded to the more distal items, but the system was not selected for responding to the more distal item because by that means it responded to the more proximal items. ( it does not respond to the more proximal items by means of its responding to the more distal items ; that is not how the means - end analysis pans out ). on this causal theory, a sensory - perceptual system need not have produced rs only in the presence of cs during selection of the system. there is no need to specify channel conditions or conditions in which representation is reliable. this is not a type - 1 teleological theory of content. the idea that representations are reliably caused by or correlated with their contents in some conditions does not figure in the proposal. the first requirement ensures different content ascriptions to those generated by benefit - based teleological theories. for example, consider again the kimu ( see section 3. 2 ). as stipulated by pietrosky, it is the presence of red and not the absence of snorf that causes the relevant mechanism in a kimu to produce a b - state. mechanisms of the type were not selected for a disposition to be caused by an absence of snorf to produce b - states. they had no such disposition, so they could not have been selected for it. the relevant mechanisms in the kimu were selected for a disposition to be caused by red to produce a b - state, as well as for further causing certain movements ( hill climbing of a morning ) thereby. they were selected for this


that were small, dark and moving, the fact that contributions to fitness were made only on those occasions when an infectious disease was absent is, again, a background evolutionary fact that is not content - constitutive on this proposal. one possible concern is whether sufficient room for misrepresentation has been made. some early discussions of teleological theories of content assumed that the content of the frog ' s representation must be frog food or fly or else misrepresentation would be impossible. the frog would not be in error when it snapped at something small, dark and moving that was not frog food, or not a fly. however, misrepresentation is possible on this proposal. a representation that is supposed to be produced in response to something that is small, dark and moving and is instead produced in response to something large and looming would count as misrepresenting and a neurologically damaged frog ( e. g., one with a damaged thalamus ) will indeed attempt to catch all sorts of inappropriate things ( e. g., an experimenter ' s hand or even the frog ' s own limbs ). this informational theory also entails that a kimu ' s b - state will misrepresent if it is tokened in response to anything that is not red. more importantly, perhaps, it seems to entail that human reds will misrepresent if tokened at something not - red, as could happen in red - green color blindness, in color contrast illusions or in unusual viewing conditions. as millikan ( 2012 ) and others have pointed out, there are representations that cannot be caused by their contents, such as tomorrow. no tomorrow has ever caused a thought about tomorrow. however, tomorrow is not a sensory - perceptual representation and so this is not an objection to this proposal per se. as with other modest theories, however, the challenge is explaining how to link this modest theory for some mental contents to a more comprehensive theory that accounts for all of the contents of all of our concepts ( see section section 3. 4 ). the preceding survey of teleological theories of content does not mention all of the extant teleological theories but it illustrates some of the commonalities and differences among them. now we turn to some objections that have been raised against the general idea of teleosemantics. this section looks at the objections that have been most influential. some have already been touched on in previous sections. there are several potential indeterminacy problems. aside from


be selected? ”. in this case, the answer is ( ii ) through ( vi ). the altered shape of the hemoglobin did all of this, and all of this was adaptive, and all of this contributed to the selection of the trait ( i. e., it was selected for all of this ). so all of this would seem to be the trait ' s function. its function is the complex causal role for which it was selected. the problem for content can be seen when we consider mechanisms that produce or consume representations. for instance, the frog ' s detection device was selected because it ( a ) responded to small, dark, moving things and ( b ) that helped the frog catch these things, and ( c ) that provided the frog with nutrients and ( d ) that contributed to the frog ' s chances of survival and reproduction in various ways. thus ancestral detection devices contributed to the selection of that type of device by way of a complex causal route in which the visible configuration of the stimulus and the nutritional properties of the stimulus both play a role. note that this does not depend on these features of the environment being co - extensional. even if not all small, dark and moving things were nutritious and not all nutritious things were small, dark and moving in the frog ' s natural habitat, this problem of complex causal roles would still remain. the problem is that the systems responsible for the production and the consumption of representations were selected for complex causal roles in which a number of environmental features were involved. agar ( 1993 ) supports the idea that the frog ' s representation represents small, dark, moving food, a content intended to incorporate all of the properties causally responsible for the selection. price ( 1998, 2001 ) claims that, contrary to what has just been said, there is a unique, correct function ascription for each trait and she elaborates a number of principles to isolate the unique, correct function ascription. enc ( 2002 ) endorses price ' s claim that function ascriptions must be determinate if any teleological theory of content is to succeed but raises problems for her attempt to show that function ascriptions are suitably determinate. however, teleological theories of content do not merely gesture toward functions and leave it at that. consider again the causal theory discussed in the preceding section. the content of the frog ' s sensory - perceptual representation is not indeterminate between the configuration of visible features and something nutritious on that


contents, they cannot always have the same truth values as davidson ' s. everyone will probably agree that, at t, swampman cannot remember his past life since at most he could only have pseudo - memories of davidson ' s. everyone will also agree that swampman cannot correctly think that he is returning home to his wife and sitting in his house, since the house and the wife are not his. further, it should be kept in mind that many think that putnam ( 1975 ) has shown that the contents of natural kind concepts do not supervene on just what is “ in the head. ” if putnam - style twin cases can be constructed for other mental representations and their contents as well ( see burge 1979, 1986 ) then swampman ' s lack of history might anyway be an issue even before considering the further complication of a teleological theory. it thus requires careful analysis with respect to controversial issues to determine just what intuitions about swampman would tell against the externalism of teleological theories in particular. those who try to dislodge any remaining intuitions against teleological theories argue that an appearance of design can be misleading. ( recall that “ design ” here includes the mechanical design - work of natural selection. ) consider, for example, boorse ' s swamprabbits. it might be intuitive to attribute functions to their eye - analogs. but in nature nothing so intricately organized as if for the performance of a function fails to be the result of a design process. it is argued that habits of thought, which usually take us from an appearance of design to a function ascription, lead to false ascriptions in purely hypothetical unrealistic cases ( neander 1991 ). dretske ( 1996 ) argues the case with another imaginary example. twin - tercel, a random replica of his old tercel, comes about as the result of a freakish storm in a junk yard. it is molecule - for - molecule identical to his old tercel, except that its “ gas - gauge ” does not move in relation to the amount of gas in its “ tank ”. we might be tempted to say that the thing is broken, but dretske says that there is no basis for saying that it does not work because to say that it does not work implies that it was designed to do something it cannot do and it was not designed to do anything. if we should reform our intuitions in the one case, perhaps we should also reform them in the case of swampman ' s


lexeme of a natural language derives its content, constitutively speaking, independently of every other such concept ' s content. many psychologists and some philosophers believe that some complex concepts are somehow composed out of or are anyway learned through the use of simpler concepts. crucially, to deny that conceptual atomism is true does not commit one to the view that complex concepts are simply defined in terms of simpler concepts ( a fuller discussion of concepts and whether conceptions can play any role in determining reference is outside of the scope of this entry ). millikan would in this context ask us to take note of her notions of derived and adapted proper functions. what millikan refers to as a “ direct proper function ” belongs to a mechanism for which there has been selection. the mechanisms that produce camouflage patterns on the surface of the octopus have the direct proper function to do so. the patterns that the mechanisms produce by means of which they perform this function possess what millikan calls a “ derived proper function, ” derived from the function of the mechanism to provide camouflage. further, a pattern produced on a particular occasion has an “ adapted derived proper function, ” which is a relational function, in this case to provide camouflage in that particular setting in which the octopus is situated. millikan makes use of these extended senses in which items may have functions to try to explain the contents of novel representations and representations that are produced as a result of learning. learning mechanisms have certain functions and when they perform their functions in particular circumstances their products can have adapted derived proper functions in relation to those circumstances, whether or not the circumstances obtained during the history of our species. millikan ( 2000 ) gives an extensive treatment of concepts. in brief, her view is that conceptions play no role in determining the extensions of the concepts with which they are associated. millikan ' s theory presupposes innate learning mechanisms that are tuned to identify substances of different sorts in accord with certain principles. the relevant sort of substance is that which accounts for the past selective success of the learning mechanisms. for instance, some mental mechanisms might have been selected for recognizing faces of individuals in accord with certain principles of operation, and others might have been selected for recognizing animals of different species in accord with other principles of operation. these mechanisms can acquire the “ purpose ” to recognize something more specific, such as a particular individual ' s face or animals of a particular species, because the mechanisms were selected for recognizing things in that domain ( faces or animals ) in accord with certain principles of operation and,


. - – – – 1989b, “ biosemantics ”, in journal of philosophy, 86 : 281 – 97. - – – – 1990, “ truth, rules, hoverflies and the kripke - wittgenstein paradox ” in philosophical review, 99 : 232 – 53. - – – – 1991, “ speaking up for darwin ” in loewer, b. & rey, g. ( eds. ) ( 1991 ) meaning in mind : fodor and his critics, cambridge, ma : blackwell, 151 – 165. - – – – 1993, white queen psychology and other essays for alice, cambridge, ma : mit press. - – – – 1996, “ on swampkinds ”, in mind and language, 11 ( 1 ) : 70 – 130. - – – – 2000, on clear and confused ideas : an essay about substance concepts, cambridge : cambridge university press. - – – – 2004, varieties of meaning, cambridge, mass : mit press. - nanay, b., 2010, “ a modal theory of content, ” in journal of philosophy, 107 : 412 – 431. - neander, k., 1983, abnormal psychobiology, ph. d. thesis, la trobe. - – – – 1991, “ functions as selected effects ”, in philosophy of science, 58 : 168 – 184. - – – – 1995, “ malfunctioning and misrepresenting ”, in philosophical studies, 79 : 109 – 141. - – – – 1996, “ swampman meets swampcow ”, in mind and language, 11 ( 1 ) : 70 – 130. - – – – 2002, “ types of traits : the importance of functional homologues ”, in a. ariew, r. cummins & m. perlman ( eds. ), op. cit., 390 – 415. - – – – 2006, “ content for cognitive science ”, in g. mcdonald and d. papineau ( eds. ), teleosemantics, oxford : oxford university press, 167 – 194. - – – – forthcoming, “ toward an informational teleosemantics ”, in j. kingsbury, d. ryder and k. williford ( eds. ) millikan and her critics, oxford : blackwell. - palmer, s., 1999, vision science : protons to phenomenology, cambridge, ma : mit press. - papineau, david


buzzard44 wrote : this seems pretty useless. the article states that when the power is halved by a factor of four, then the light output is halved. this means when you increase the power by a factor of 4, the light output is only doubled. given it is " 230 % efficient " ( which in itself is a bs play on semantics ), let ' s say i wanted, oh, a watt of light. just one watt. if the quadrupling the power to double the light holds true, we ' re talking megawatts of power. seems to me the concept is that you run each one at the almost vanishingly low power level where it works very efficiently, but make up for the low output by having millions of microscopic versions of this thing etched onto a single chip. since light output will scale linearly with number of leds, this theoretically could get you useful amounts of light at very high efficiency. such a device would be the equivalent of a peltier device where the " hot " side emits visible radiation instead of infrared ( heat ). another amusing implication of this phenomenon : such a device would cool itself down as it operates, and eventually stop working because it gets too cold! there would need to be the inverse of a heat sink ( a cold sink? ) attached to it to enable it to operate reliably! yogibbear wrote : okay. nothing is 230 % efficient. i don ' t care what the article says. or what they claim. or why it " doesn ' t break " conservation laws. it just cannot break it. the energy comes from somewhere. oh wow it " draws it in " from the surroundings... that ' s energy consumption. that ' s not 230 % efficiency. actually, any engineering students who ' ve done any undergrad level thermodynamics classes should be familiar with air conditioning systems which are greater than 100 % efficient. note however that entropy is not violated, as the heat output has higher entropy than the original system. yup, systems that utilize this effect can actually have a " coefficient of performance " of up to 5. 0 ( i. e. " 500 % efficiency ", if we use the misleading interpretation from in the original article ). http : / / en. wikipedia. org / wiki / heat _ pump # efficiency